House approves Oath of Office Bill, May 18, 1789

On this day in 1789, the first House of Representatives, as its first legislative act, approved the Oath of Office Bill. President George Washington signed it into law on June 1.

The text read, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.” The lawmakers adopted these 14 words because the Constitution does not specify an oath of office for members of Congress.

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The Constitution does state, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Nonetheless, every federal oath save the presidential oath — whose wording is in the Constitution — now ends with “so help me God.”

In April 1861, when the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., triggered the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln promulgated an expanded oath for federal civilian employees. That July, when the wartime Congress reconvened, its members echoed the president’s action by passing legislation that required members to take an expanded oath, vowing their support of the Union.

The current oath, enacted in 1884, reads: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

During swearing-in ceremonies on Capitol Hill, newly elected lawmakers raise their right hands and — led by the speaker of the House or, in the Senate, the vice president — repeat this oath of office. Some later hold informal ceremonies as a photo op.